The Act of Creation (85 page)

p. 535
f.), which showed that clever jackdaws
have a 'pre-linguistic number sense' almost equal to man's and are
'able to abstract the concept of numerical identity from groups of
up to seven objects'; which 'suggests that many animals may have a
prelinguistic
counting
ability of about the same degree, but
that man's superiority in dealing with numbers lies in his ability to
use, as symbols for numbers, words and figures'. [10] The dependence
of counting and calculating abilities on verbal processes is further
illustrated by Penfield's studies on aphasia, about which later.

 

 

Even voluntary movements (as opposed to automatized skills) seem to be
to some extent dependent on guidance by internal verbalization. Some of
Head's patients with speech disorders due to brain lesions were unable
to imitate correctly Head's gestures -- such as touching an eye or an ear
with the left or right hand -- while they were sitting face to face with
Head; but had no difficulty in doing so if standing in front of a mirror
with Head standing behind them. In the mirror test, of course, the task
is reduced to pure imitation, whereas sitting opposite the experimenter
'left' and 'right' are reversed and the patient cannot see himself:

 

When the patient sitting opposite to me attempts to imitate movements
of my right or left hand brought into contact with one or other eye or
ear, internal verbalization occurs at a phase of the normal act. No word
may be uttered, but the words "right" and "left", "eye "and "ear", are
essential to correct imitation of this kind. For the same reason these
patients may find considerable difficulty in carrying out the hand,
eye, and ear tests when the command is pictorial (given by a drawing on
a printed card) although they can execute them correctly when asked to
do so by word of mouth (or even by printed command). Their difficulty
is in evoking the words they require, and the verbal command supplies
the necessary want.' [11]

 

Thus Head's patients, with their impaired command of words, were virtually
reduced from the level of the verbalizers to that of the motor-learners in
Warden's maze experiment. We must conclude that verbal symbolism enters
even into the learning of complex motor skills -- just as it provides
the mortar for holding together complex visual pseudo-images
(
p. 531
ff.).

 

 

 

Ideation and Verbalization

 

 

Owing to the immense benefits derived from verbalization, the verbal
symbol, which at the dawn of symbol-consciousness was at first no more
than a label attached to a pre-existing conceptual schema, soon becomes
its focal member, its centre of gravity, as it were. As words are the
most convenient and economical means not only of communication but also
of internal discourse, they soon assume a central role in the child's
mental life, whereas images and other forms of unverbalized thought
are gradually pushed towards the periphery, the fringes of awareness,
or sink slowly down below its surface.

 

 

This tendency of verbal thinking to dominate and monopolize consciousness
has its blessings and its curses, though the latter are less obvious than
the former. Some of the dangers of thought becoming enslaved to words
have been discussed in Book One, VII. Woodworth's remark, 'often we have
to get away from speech in order to think clearly' [12] was seen to apply
to a wide range of creative activities -- from mathematics and physics
to philosophy, and there is no need to labour the point further. What
needs stressing once more is that words are symbols for perceptual and
cognitive events, but they are not the events. They are vehicles of
thought, but the vehicle should not be confused with the passengers.

 

 

Let me recapitulate. (1) The child has formed a variety of pre-verbal
concepts of persons, objects, and recurrent events to which later verbal
symbols become attached as labels; without the previously existing
person-concept, the symbol 'Mama' would have nothing to refer to; it
would remain meaningless -- an empty vehicle without passenger. (2) At
a later stage, the word and the concept may be acquired simultaneously:
'Mummy, what does SEDUCTRESS mean?' 'A very bad woman who uses too
much make-up.' (3) The
concept
'seductress' will undergo drastic
changes during adolescence and later years; the
word
SEDUCTRESS
remains unchanged. It is a vehicle with a fixed, immutable structure;
whereas the passengers are constantly changing, getting in and out of
the bus. We may even distinguish between passengers of first and second
class: trim denotations, furtive connotations, and stow-aways hidden
under the seats. Dr. Watson's suggestion that the passengers themselves
are subliminal omnibuses was not a helpful one. (4) The word SEDUCTRESS
refers to different concepts in different people. (5) The word which is
attached to a concept may become detached from it, leaving the concept
more or less unimpaired. This last point needs elaboration.

 

 

One may of course forget the name of a person without forgetting the
person, i.e. without losing one's concept of him or her. But does the
same apply when the word refers to an abstract concept?

 

 

A certain class of Head's aphasic patients confused the names of numbers,
but nevertheless carried out the correct numerical operations. The patient
would call a card 'nine of hearts' when he meant 'seven of hearts', and
yet play a correct game. On doing a multiplication he would say aloud
'seven nines are fifty-six' and yet write down '63' correctly. This
shows that his number-concepts remained intact, although he attached the
wrong verbal labels to them; he probably catalogued them by their visual
labels (the written figures), but this did not impair the efficiency
of his symbolic operations. The trouble of the jackdaw is not that it
cannot attach
verbal
symbols to its number-concepts, but that it
cannot symbolize them in any other way either. One has only to think of
deaf-mutes to remind one that a symbolic language is not necessarily an
auditory-vocal language.*
The clinical phenomena of aphasia are frequently open to more than one
interpretation; but on the particular point under discussion this is
not the case. After surveying the literature on the subject, Humphreys
[13] concluded: 'the general argument from aphasia for the independence
of thought and language seems, on reading the evidence, overwhelmingly
strong'. ('Independence' manifested in pathological cases does not,
of course, prevent interaction under normal conditions.)
More recently, Penfield and Roberts, reviewing the literature and their
own case histories, came to the same conclusion: 'It is obvious that
in many cases the aphasic patient is able to perceive accurately. He
knows what an object is used for; he recognizes it. He must, therefore,
be able to draw upon his store of recorded experience. He is still able
to record his new experience of things heard and seen, and to compare
the new experience with the whole of his past similar experiences. Thus
his capairy to perceive through other channels than the sound and form
of words is preserved.' [14]
Particularly impressive is the evidence from temporary aphasia induced
by electrical stimulation of the cortical speech areas of the conscious
and consenting patient. Penfield's usual method was to show the patient
an object printed on a card and ask him to name it, while the low-voltage
electrode was applied to various points of the cortex: 'The patient may
remain silent, or he may use words to explain that he cannot name the
object, or he may misname it. He may show perseveration.' [15]
A typical case is the following (italics in the original):

When the electrode was applied to the supramarginal gyrus at point 27,
he said: 'I know what it is', and was silent. When the electrode was
withdrawn, he said at once, 'tree', which was correct.
When the electrode was applied to the posterior temporal region
at 28, he was completely silent. A little time after the electrode
was withdrawn, he exclaimed suddenly: 'Now I can talk -- butterfly
[which was correct]. I couldn't get that word "butterfly" and then
I tried to get the word "moth". . . .' The speech mechanism was
separately paralysed, and yet the man could understand what he saw
and could substitute the concept, moth, for the concept butterfly,
in a reasoned attempt to regain control of the speech mechanism,
by presenting to it a new idea, moth. He could also snap his fingers
(as he did) in exasperation at his failure.

The words of C.H. [the patient] bring us face to face with other
brain mechanisms
. The
concept
of a moth, as distinguished from
a butterfly, must also depend on a brain mechanism -- a mechanism capable
of functioning when the speech mechanism is selectively paralysed --
a mechanism that stores something derived from the past. . . . [16]
Dropping the terminology of physiology for the moment, I may say that the
patient presented the concept of a 'butterfly' to his speech mechanism,
expecting that the word for it would be forthcoming. When the mechanism
failed him, he cast about and selected an analogous concept from his
storehouse of concepts and presented that to the speech mechanism. But
again he was disappointed, and he snapped his fingers in exasperation. He
could still express himself emotionally with his fingers in that way,
although he would probably not have been able to write the lost words.*
Penfield concludes that there exists a 'conceptual mechanism' in the
brain, and a 'speech mechanism' which is structurally separate, and
functionally separable from the former.
We have seen that a considerable portion of mental activities is of
a non-verbal character -- in the nature of experiences which 'cannot
be put into words', which remain incommunicable and inarticulate, and
nevertheless play an important, sometimes even a dominant, part in a
person's life. We now see that even in articulate verbal thinking,
a distinction must be drawn between the ideational process and its
conversion into verbal currency. I have quoted some of the clinical
evidence; there is also a vast body of experimental evidence reviewed,
e.g. by Humphrey (1951). [17] Among the most convincing results are
those which emerged from factor analysis (Burt, 1949).*
Everyday experience points in the same direction. In states of fatigue
one may read every word of a printed paragraph without understanding 'a
single word of it'. And vice versa: every experienced lecturer knows that
one's thoughts may race ahead, or go astray, while one goes on talking --
as if talking were an automatized and autonomous skill like the typist's
who 'copies behind'. More precisely, the lecturer converts into verbal
currency cognitive sub-wholes on lower levels of the hierarchy, which
have already been portioned out or 'pre-chewed' by the ideational process
proceeding on the higher level.
We may safely conclude, then, with Humphrey: '
Clinical, experimental,
and factorial results agree that language cannot be equated with
thinking.
Language is ordinarily of great assistance in thinking. It
may also be a hindrance.'
NOTES
To
p. 594
. Excerpt from the textbook
Psychology
, ed. A. D. Calvin (Boston, 1961), Section Four:
'Learning, Retention and Motivation' by F. J. McGuigan:

 

The experimental data that we have presented . . . have been limited
to rather simple responses such as salivation and bar-pressing. In
our everyday life we seldom spend much time in thinking about such
isolated responses, usually thinking of more gross activities, such
as learning a poem, carrying on a conversation, solving a mechanical
puzzle, learning our way around a new city, to name only a few. While
the psychologist could study these more complicated activities, as is
done to some extent, the general approach of psychology is to bring
simpler responses into the laboratory for study. Once the psychologist
discovers the principles of learning for simpler phenomena under the
more ideal conditions of the laboratory [sic], it is likely that he can
apply these principles to the more complex activities as they occur in
everyday life. The more complex phenomena are, after all, nothing but
a series of simpler responses. Speaking to a friend is a good example
of this. Suppose we have a conversation such as the following:
He: 'What time is it?'
She: 'Twelve o'clock.'
He: 'Thank you.'
She: 'Don't mention it,'
He: 'How about lunch?'
She: 'Fine.'
Now this conversation can be analysed into separate S.-R. units. 'He'
makes the first response, which is emitted probably to the
stimulus of the sight of 'She'. When 'He' emits the operant, 'What
time is it?', the muscular activity, of course, produces a sound, which
also serves as a stimulus for 'She'. On the receipt of this stimulus,
she emits an operant herself: 'Twelve o'clock', which in turn produces
a stimulus to 'He'. And so on. . . .
In such a complex activity, then, we can see that what we really
have is a series of S.-R. connections. The phenomenon of connecting
a series of such S.-R. units is known as "chaining", a process that
should be apparent in any complex activity. We might note that there
are a number of sources of reinforcement throughout the chaining
process, in this example the most obvious being the reinforcement of
'She' by receiving an invitation for lunch and of 'He' by having the
invitation accepted. In addition, as Keller and Schoenfeld point out,
there are such sources of reinforcement as the hearer 'encouraging'
the speaker to continue, the use that the conversationalists make of
the information received (he finds out what time it is), etc.
This example of the analysis of a complex activity is but one of
numerous possibiliti,es that we could discuss. You should continue to
think of others yourself and try to diagram the chaining process for
them . . . (p. 375).